The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which handles challenges to the country’s secret-surveillance programs, ruled that the intelligence agency GCHQ had violated human rights when it failed to tell the British public about the kinds of circumstances in which it could conduct warrantless mining of Internet users’ communications that had been collected by the US National Security Agency.

Recently, the Administration announced numerous changes to surveillance activities to protect privacy and civil liberties, including reforms to its Minimization Rules for Section 702, concerning retention and use of communications of or about US persons. Some of these reforms are significant improvements, but they do not adequately address ongoing problems with overbroad collection, retention, and use of information pursuant to Section 702.

CDT, in partnership with a diverse coalition of companies and advocacy groups, announced its support of a bill authored by California state legislators designed to enshrine strong privacy protections for electronic communications in California law. The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) would create a warrant standard for electronic communications, requiring police to obtain a warrant before gathering electronic communications information from service providers.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) previewed its proposed rules aimed at ensuring net neutrality and an open Internet. While the final Open Internet rules will not be finalized until the end of the month, the proposal previewed by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler would reclassify broadband services under Title II and provide clear legal authority for the FCC to protect the open Internet.

CDT submitted a set of recommendations to the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing outlining key protections for the use of body cameras. While certainly not a cure-all for police misconduct issues, we believe body cameras have strong potential to aid civilians and improve community-police relations. However, urgent calls for reform threaten to cause a hurried rollout of body cameras without proper consideration of privacy protections

As stakeholders across the spectrum continue to work diligently toward consensus on a strong IANA transition proposal, various members of the US Government have taken pains to express support for both the multistakeholder process and for overall ICANN accountability reform.

Harley Geiger, CDT Senior Counsel, guest wrote for Lawfare, a site published by the Lawfare Institute in cooperation with the Brookings Institute, about the implications if Sec. 215 sunsets in the coming year.

The Federal Trade Commission released its report, “Internet of Things: Privacy & Security in a Connected World” on Tuesday. The report summarizes the Commission’s November 2013 workshop and includes recommendations for how companies can design connected devices that both enhance consumers’ lives and protect their privacy. The Internet of Things (“IoT”) is changing our everyday lives and potentially for the better, provided that individual rights vis-a-vis these new technologies are secured.

To examine a multitude of health privacy questions, we held the 4th iteration of our “Always On” series, this time bringing together leading experts in government, academia, advocacy, and industry to explore the regulatory and social challenges we face as digital patients. Michelle details the conversations that were held, the questions that were posed, and the solutions that were considered, plus more.

For years CDT has been leading the charge to update ECPA, the law that governs how police and government can access to our personal communications like emails and photos. We’ve consistently argued that these types of private communications should only be accessible with a warrant based on probable cause – the same standard used to search your postal mail or your home. Today, Data Privacy Day, is a good day to talk about why.